Edmund Lee looks for enlightenment on stage – before another C-lettered musical rolls into town

We’d like to predict better things to come from Hong Kong’s consistently excellent, if seldom truly awe-inspiring, stage community. But, after a year that saw at least two major local productions inexplicably burst into that cheesy Bollywood dance number from Slumdog Millionaire, can we be sure about anything, anymore? Not that we didn’t enjoy the irrelevant fun that occasionally marked the vibrant local works; but then again, it’s also pretty hard to argue against the comfort that established classics might otherwise let us fall back on.

While Russia’s Mariinsky Ballet and Opera are respectively bringing their productions of classics Don Quixote (Mar 20-24) and Britten’s The Turn of the Screw (Mar 26-27) to the coming Arts Festival, Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes will be staging Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Mar 25-28), and renowned British actor-director Steven Berkoff On the Waterfront (Mar 13-20). To make our wait more unbearable, Berkoff teases us that Waterfront, “a play about having the courage to speak out [and] obey your conscience even if it angers the world,” is “one of the most dynamic dramas [he has] ever directed”.

With local theatre giants Fredric Mao and Danny Yung also staging their respective new works – the music theatre The Liaisons (Mar 4-9), and the kun operatic theatre Flee by Night (Mar 25-27) – for the occasion, this year’s Arts Festival programme again stands out in a class of its own.

Outside the fest’s manic schedule, intellectual excitement can as well be had from On & On Theatre’s contemporary European theatre series, titled Between Text and Performance, which presents local productions of David Harrower’s Knives in Hens (Mar 23-28), Caryl Churchill’s Far Away (Apr 8-11), and Falk Richter’s God is a DJ (Apr 22-25). In April, our beloved small-scale theatre showcase, Microfest, will also return with the Asian premiere of German playwright Marius von Mayenburg’s acclaimed dark comedy, The Ugly One (Apr 20-24). “The play is fantastically funny and also asks serious questions about how we regard superficial matters,” says artistic director Giles Burton. Having seen the ultra-high standard of the fest’s 2009 edition, we trust him.

And if none of these whet your appetites… readers, we can almost understand. After all, you’ve just voted Cats as your best stage show of 2009. Prepare to wet yourself, then, as the hit musical Chicago (starting May 20) revisits our city after a nine-year interval. “I think Chicago is an unbelievably sexy and exciting musical,” says its Australian producer, James Cundall. “The music is terrific, the choreography is sheer perfection, and the satirical humour is wonderful.”

Right. Here’s to… each his own.

January
14-Feb 12 City Festival
20-31 University of Laughs (Re-run; The Nonsensemakers)
22-24 Snow Fox (Re-run; HK Dance Company)
29-31 The Chalk Circle in China (Class 7A Drama Group)
29-31 MicroSex Office (Re-run; PIP Theatre)

February
2-14 The Merchants of Bollywood
4-7 Table for Two (Re-run; Trinity Theatre & Kearen Pang)
5-7 Firecracker (HK Ballet)
25-Mar 28 HK Arts Festival

March
5-21 Nunsense (Theatre Space)
9-13 The Odd Couple (Female Version) (HK Players)
19-21 Painted Face (HK Dance Company)
20-Apr 4 Communicating Doors (HKRep)
23-28 Knives in Hens (Theatre du Pif)
26-28 Evolution of Ballet (HK Ballet)
26-Apr 11 Frankenstein (Chung Ying Theatre)
31-Apr 18 HK Musical Festival

April
2-8 Copenhagen (HKRep & TNT Theatre)
8-11 Far Away (On & On Theatre)
13-18 Showstopper! The Improvised Musical
15-Jun 15 Le French May
22-25 God is a DJ (On & On Theatre)
23-25 Qingming Riverside (Re-run; HK Dance Company)
TBC HK Microfest

May
8 TakeOut Comedython for Charity
20-TBC Chicago the Musical
TBC Coming Home (Re-run; PIP Theatre)
TBC MicroSex Office (Re-run; PIP Theatre)

June
16-20 Oliver! (HK Singers)

July
9-Aug 15 International Arts Carnival

August
TBC New work by Jim Chim (PIP Theatre)

October
6-16 4th Annual HK International Comedy Festival
Mid-Oct to mid-Nov New Vision Arts Festival

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